Oh, and about 30min into playing i happend to hit an analog stick on my 360 controller and i realised it was already enabled and had a preset control scheme.

The game actually plays pretty well with it besides a few small targeting issues. I can't find a way to target some quest objects and other thing i want to pick. Also when you are near more than one interactive object, after you select which one you want to use it won't let you. on both occations you can just grab your mouse and click though so it's not a big deal.

The only thing that bothers me that if i accidently change targets while im fighting it's always a pain trying to ''tab'' back to the mob right in front of me ,hitting me in the face. It seems like spamming my openner skill usually selects the mob i want, but i end up fumbling around toggling it on and then back off wasting more time, lol.

Overall it works well enough for me, i've beem using it more than not since i found out i could.

I just wanted to add another thumbs up for Champions Online.

This was my first night playing and i was on for about 7 hours, The only reason i logged was that it was time for server maintainence at 4am eastern, lol. I made it to level 13 and had a blast playing all night.

It looks like Aion may have some serious competition. I played Aion to level 27 on one character and loved it, but this was just as much fun so far. I hope both of them are alot of fun doing the high end stuff, but if so it's going to be hard t pick one.

Thanks to Mmorpg.com for the OB link, and to Cryptic for making a great game and doing the open beta. Having a ton of fun!

I do think it will take the #2 spot, easily. At least for some period of time, if not stay there.

But i don't know if it will compete with Warcraft. I think that totally depends on how much development NCSoft is willing to put into the game after release. Comparing Aion now with WoW in it's beginnings, i definitely think it has the foundation to be something special. How well they can read their customers and continue to give them quality gaming and new content over time will decide in the long run.

Let's just hope the initial release is the only thing that ever takes a year to get to NA. That is the only warning sign for fail i've seen so far. Things are moving very slowly across the ocean, and if this problem isn't fixed soon enough i doubt there is any possible way they can move fast enough to keep the players happy. /insert  Illidan Stormrage says, "You are not prepared!"

Overall, i love the game so far.

I have gotten my Gladiator to 25 now, and had alot of fun. My new gear looks amazing, my combat skills are starting to impress me and i'm really starting to feel like im getting somewhere. That's a big factor to me, i lose intrest pretty fast and without a feeling of progression after a week of two of hardcore playing, i usually quit.

The graphics do remind me of Warhammer, but better. And the characters and gear look 1000x better in my option. The music is good, and the world design is also, The art style is great and the game is very well polished at this point. I'd say on par with Blizzards mmo and above all of the other mmo's released in the past few years. It's far from perfect, but NCSoft has the money and time to work on it, just as Blizz did, and will probably make this game very successful.

Questing is a little boring after level 20, but somewhere between 20 and 25 the solo quests have begun to give way too little exp to level up without feeling the grind, leaving me looking for groups and doing the group/alliance stuff more and more often. In the mid twenties you find yourself traveling between zones, doing repeatable quests and such if you stay solo and begin to level very slowly. With the slow solo leveling and the fact you can usually walk up to a group quest area entrance and find a pick up group, grouping has been fairly easy even with the majority of the players not speaking english.

Another cool thing is that harvesting and crafting also give you exp used to level your combat level, making it alot easier to take a break and catch up on crafting stuff before you move on to areas with resources you can't gather yet, without feeling like it's slowing down your level progression too much.

My only two complaints are the lag which just started happening to me the past few days so may be a product of release and could go away soon, and the payment options.

 I rolled a glad named Jeru on region 2 Azariel, i'm loving the game so far and up until the past 2 days haven't had any problems with lag.

Ever since the day before release i've been lagging pretty bad usually. This morning it seems the worse than ever, but i'm level 25 now with really cool looking gear and hate to stat over, lol. Guess this is exactly how i'll feel when the NA version finally comes, but worse.

Anyways, i'll probably stay on Az, so if any english speaking guilds from MMORPG.com are playing there, send me a tell / invite and let's go kill some stuff.

Looks like a pretty nice PSU to me. I doubt it's the problem, unless it went bad.

I just wanted to add somehting about the power supply, vid cards usually have a minimum wattage req as well as an amperage req for the 12v rail/s.

Cheap power supplies often have low amperage, so even if you have enough watts it will still be too weak for the card.

Honestly, the only evidence i see that Darkfall is real, is the fact that MMORPG.com only has 14 games in the "games in development" section on the left there, and Darkfall is one of them.

If not for this site i would have stopped paying attention to DF a long time ago, seriously. The game sounds good to me, and i would love to get a chance to play it, but they really haven't put any effort into sharing with their fan base at all. I think this is a bad move on thier part. The arguements of Darkfall's existence or lack of it may bring attention to the game, but in my eyes it is negative attention that will not serve them in the long run, and could have a hand in them seeing so much trouble getting an NA publisher and what not as well.

I agree with people who say that Adv needs to let some kind of leakage slide in the near future for the sake of the fans patiently awaiting the game, as well as the game itself. I'm not condoning NDA breaks or trying to make one happen, but saying the company should rethink thier position, and find a way to temporarily allow some info to make it's way to the people without compromising the original intent of their NDA or depending on thier own resources which have proven a bit too slow for the demanding fan base.

In my eyes, in honor of the years of dedication of attention as well as the valuable spot in it's "In Development" forum section from MMORPG.com, this site should be chosen as a mediator that would be allowed to share a few things with it's 950k+ members, out of appreciation.

They could allow members of the MMORPG.com staff to divuldge select bits of footage ( taking for granted that Adv has actually allowed someone from the staff access to the beta ) without taking down thier NDA, and still allow valuable, trustworthy and long-awaited video evidence of Darkfall's existence and progress to reach the fans who will ultimately make or break the whole project at some point.

Adventurine, you know what we want, but we have no idea what you want. All we ask for is a little bit of goodness to wet our appetites and give us a bit of hope during the long wait. I don't see any way that could hurt you guys, even if the game is not in a state where you would think you should be showing it off yet, it is what is is, and it will be done when it's done, nothing can change that. You and your fans practically see eye to eye in your vision, so i don't think we will ever part ways in that respect, but without and reason to hope for the game or even have faith in it's existence, there will always be a dark cloud following the name Darkfall, and i'm betting your marketing and publication ventures will surely suffer from the mixed opinions and high amount of hate being thrown towards the game in general.

Just my perspective as a fan who has been waiting for the game since the days of Dark and Light, Age of Conan and Darkfall's original announcements. MMORPG.com has proven a loyal follower of it's development, and a little good will shown here from the devs will go a long way, i think. And, i don't think i'm alone here. So i officially submit my request for more info, specifically through MMORPG.com to be supplied to it's one million loyal members, hoping the lot of us equal enough weight that when thrown at Adv, they may just budge.

P.S.

Oh, also thowing one beta key my way would also do the trick in my eyes, another good option and you should honostly consider it also.

The world will be completely new and unique.

From what i've heard so far, alot of people think Aion is alot like WoW without cartoon style graphics. Or a mix of WoW/EQ and L2/GW. I love the gameplay style of Wow and EQ type games, and i love great graphics. So as long as the gameplay is alot of fun, Aion should bring me alot more fun hours of gaming.

New classes, skills and abilities i've never experienced before in a world i've never explored. That is basically all i need. I don't think of it as another serving of the same old stuff, more like the next step in MMO evolution. (if it ends up being good that is)

I agree with the thought, ''if it ain't broke, don't fix it''. As long as the game is polished, gameplay is solid and the world is well designed, i should have something new to play for a while, maybe even a long time. I don't like games that try to re-invent the wheel, and most of the time i see it as a company with a sub-par game trying to cash in on a gimmick rather than making the best game they could.

Death penalties are fine with me, as long as the penalties are from PvE deaths and not from PvP. With PvE it is your decision to venture into dangerous areas and attempt to kill difficult mobs, so the penalty adds risk factor.

But with PvP you don't always have a choice, so there should be no penalty when another player decides you should die. It would also add to risk factor here, but i don't need another reason to run from players who overpower me and may decide to kill me again and again, until they get bored or i leave / log out. Besides i would rather fight back and die than run, even if i didn't want to fight to begin with.

Maybe i'm crazy but the graphics look better to me today than they have in the past.

Was there some graphic update in the latest patch?

The funny thing is i actually feel more drawn to the game now that i think it looks good. Guess i am a graphics whore after all.

Once when i was trying to log in and the server was down, it wouldn't let me past the login thing and looked as if i was putting the info in wrong, but as soon as the server came up it was fine. Are you guys on different servers than closed beta?

If the servers aren't down, it has been suggested that you uncheck Save Login Name, delete whatever login acc and pw is written and write them again because of some strange bug.

I haven't played enough, but i can't recall ever lagging. Alot of people get crashes also though, i've never crashed either, so maybe i just haven't spent enough time in game.

It won't be a problem. The directx downloader thing checks what you already have and only updates as necessary, so it will be cool.

 edit:  oops i type slow, you are already done, lol. Have fun in WAR!

It's honestly really hard to say right now because the current settings in beta are locked at super low. At least i hope they are at super low, they are locked for sure though, and pretty low if not minimum, lol.

If you can upgrade the power supply, i say go for it.

A crappy PSU can cause alot of problems, black screens, pc reboots, bad performance or it can totally go out and take other pc parts with it.

Video cards have gotten pretty power hungry, and having a PSU just a little too weak either in watts or amps can cause any good graphics card to perform like crap.

Oh, i didn't realise that the power supply would be so weak.

You might have a hard time getting a card that will run off that. The 8800gt's require a 400 watt power supply minimum, and over 28 amps on the 12v rail.

If you have no idea about 12v rail amps which i didn't, you can check this great list at guru3d that gives the 12v amps for a bunch of name brand power supplies.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=205763

If you buy an off brand power supply, no matter how many watts it says it is, it will most likely be junk and fail you.

CleffyII gave some great recommendations, but i always worry about open-box items. They are definately worth the price, but if you can afford a little over $100 i would recommend you buy a retail because you cannot exchange open-box items and you only have 15 days to get a refund, plus all open-box items from newegg have some form of physical defect (scratches / dents etc.) It could end up a hastle for you.

I guess this is probably coming out to be more than you planned to deal with, and most likely will cost more than you hoped, hehe. Yeah, pc's are a pain in the ass sometimes, lol.  No wonder Dell and the companies like it make so much money. But you really do save a ton building them yourself, and end up with a much better machine.

I wouldn't recommend buying a card from Bestbuy. They are known to overcharge quite a bit, and also sell alot of items that don't work and will require you to exchange them once or more before you find one that does work.

I also don't recommend any card lower than an Nvidia 8800gt / 9600gt or an ATI 3850, and the 512mb version of each. You will probably be dissapointed by any weaker cards, and these are the real bang for your buck deals right now. For a little more money you get cards that are 2x - 5x faster than the next lower models.

If you are willing to buy it online and pay a little over $100, newegg.com has this Asus 8800gt 512mb for $119 and it isn't showing me any added price for ups 3 day shipping, so the shipping may be free  right now. 

It also comes with a free copy of Alone in the Dark.

This would be my recommended purchase. The 8800gt 512 is a great card, and for 120 bucks it is an unbeatable value.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121263

There are a few negative points that stand out for me. 

The graphics aren't very good at this time which may change, but right now i think WoW looks better and i was expecting graphics similar to WoW but 3-4 years newer. Even the world itself seems a bit bland and empty, i don't notice the small details and such you see in WoW and other games leaving the world feeling a bit empty. This may also change, and i hope they both do as i have heard many times the full graphics of the release version will be much better, and the videos and such i've watched for the past year or so really had my expectations high.

Combat feels sloppy to me, it's hard to explain but it feels more like LoTRO than WoW the way skills and and such go. It feels a bit slow and unresponsive, and instead of trying to decide which skills to use and when, then trying to squeeze them all in there in time it feels as if i'm always waiting for a cooldown to spam a key again. And the mobs act a little strange at times as well, moving behind you after you run up and attack it and things like that, not sure if server lag or a bad database are to blame for this, but it shouldn't be too hard to fix i hope.

Some animations and movements aren't so great. Some feel slow or floaty, hard to explain again but there is something i just don't like, it doesn't feel right to me.

As far as the technology goes, it just seems that this game could have been released along side WoW, and is not the ''new up-to-date WoW style game" i expected it to be. Perhaps they are waiting a bit longer to show us the game in all it's glory and i will be eating my words in a few weeks, but with release coming so soon, i would think that if they had it they would show it off, i have thought games were holding back before and been shocked to find out they weren't, but honestly i don't see any reason why anyone would hold back this close to release.

The PQs are great, and these guys seem to have a better idea of what direction to take PvP and also make a game fun for everyone to play. It makes me wonder what WoW could have become with Mythic or people like them pulling the strings.

I don't want to bash WAR at all, just wanted to put my honest opinion out there. And people need to hear some negatives so their hype isn't off the charts going into this game. There is a ton of hype for WAR right now, and people are looking for some criticism (well the players are, not Mythic), so i'm just mentioning some things that bothered me.

 I don't know exactly what it is about this game, but it just doesn't have that wow factor that pulls me in and holds me there. Lack of polish and detail, or whatever it is, i just find it a bit lackluster in it's current state. It doesn't have the amazing professionalism that in my opinion got WoW where it is. I don't really like WoW, but i have always felt that if different people had control over the technology, world and engine, it could be the best MMO ever made.

WAR seems like it has some great idea for delivering pure fun to it's players that is easy to get into for anyone, but as far as technology goes i feel the game is way behind.

One good thing is that i have never crashed or had any problems with the client at all.

Laura will be missed. My thoughts and prayers go out to her friends and familty.

Mmorpg.com won't be the same without her.